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Rousseaus profound insight can be found in almost every trace of modern philosophy today Somewhat complicated and ambiguous Rousseaus general philosophy tried to grasp an emotional and passionate side of man which he felt was left out of most previous philosophical thinking In his early writing Rousseau contended that man is essentially good a noble savage when in the state of nature the state of all the other animals and the condition man was in before the creation of civilization and society and that good people are made unhappy and corrupted by their experiences in society He viewed society as artificial and corrupt and that the furthering of society results in the continuing unhappiness of man Rousseaus essay Discourse on the Arts and Sciences argued that the advancement of art and science had not been beneficial to mankind He proposed that the progress of knowledge had made governments more powerful and crushed individual liberty He concluded that material progress had actually undermined the possibility of sincere friendship replacing it with jealousy fear and suspicion One of the primary principles of Rousseaus political philosophy is that politics and morality should not be separated When a state fails to act in a moral fashion it ceases to function in the proper manner and ceases to exert genuine authority over the individual The second important principle is freedom which the state is created to preserve Rousseaus ideas about education have profoundly influenced modern educational theory He minimizes the importance of book learning and recommends that a childs emotions should be educated before his reason He placed a special emphasis on learning by experience His educational model is a 5 stage learning process which hinges on the previously mentioned ideals of living and learning The first stage is infancy from birth to about two years Infancy ends with the weaning of the child During this stage he is given more liberty but less power What

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